MILAN, Italy — Frida Giannini, who showed her first full runway collection for Gucci last week, pronounced the house's iconic hypersexual, predatory woman dead.

The penchant for the "molto sexy" frock has simply turned into a cliché.

Influenced by grandma

Giannini, 32, said that part of her inspiration came from her grandmother and the way in which she and her friends dressed in the 1940s. She had recently seen pictures from that period and was intrigued by the pleasure that the women seemed to take from their clothes during a time of war.

The collection, she cautioned, wasn't nostalgic but it did incorporate the strong shoulders of that period, and the eveningwear reflected the more covered-up reserve of the era.

And it was either gutsy or foolhardy to promote an image of a tomboy in a motorcycle jacket at a time when fashion has turned resolutely feminine and charming.

Seattle Times (from The Washington Post), October 4, 2005